Moving picture video is typically recorded or encoded at a pre-determined frame rate. For example, cinema films are typically recorded at a fixed rate of 24 frames per second (fps). Video as broadcast for television in accordance with the NTSC standard, on the other hand, is encoded at 30 fps. Video broadcast in accordance with European PAL or SECAM standards is encoded at 25 fps.
Conversion between frame rates has created challenges. One common technique of converting frame rates involves dropping or repeating frames within a frame sequence. For example, telecine conversion (often referred to as 3:2 pull down) is used to convert 24 fps motion picture video to 60 fields per second (30 fps). Each second frame spans 3 video fields, while each other second frame spans two fields. Telecine conversion is, for example, detailed in Charles Poynton, Digital Video and HDTV Algorithms and Interfaces, (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003), the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
Various other techniques for frame rate conversion are discussed in John Watkinson “The Engineer's Guide to Standards Conversion”, Snell and Wilcox Handbook Series.
More recently, frame rate conversion has not only been used for conversion between formats and standards, but also to enhance overall video quality. For example, in an effort to reduce perceptible flicker associate with conventional PAL televisions, high frame rate 100 fields per second (50 fps) televisions have become available.
In the future, higher frame rates may become a significant component in providing higher quality home video. Existing video, however, is not readily available at the higher frame rate. Accordingly, frame rate conversion will be necessary. Such conversion, in real time presents numerous challenges, arising at least in part from the requirements to analyse incoming video in order to form higher rate video. This is exacerbated in current video receivers in which frame rate conversion and other video processing function independently.
Video processors, such as those found within video player devices (e.g. PCs, DVD-Video players, High-Density HD-DVD players, Blu-Ray disc players, or set-top boxes), may apply various types of video processing to a video signal to improve the appearance or quality of the video image. For example, a video processor may apply color correction, gamma correction, contrast correction, sharpness enhancement or edge enhancement, or combinations of these. The video processing that is applied may be based wholly or partly upon user preferences. Once the video signal has been processed, it may be passed to a downstream component, such as a display device (e.g. a flat panel display such as a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) or plasma display or a rear-projection display such as a Digital Light Processing (DLP) or Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) display). The downstream component may have a video processor that is capable of performing some or all of the same video processing that the upstream video processor is capable of performing, possibly in addition to further video processing of which the upstream video processor is incapable. However, in view of the independent functioning of the upstream and downstream video processors, the downstream video processor may have difficulty ascertaining what further video processing, if any, it should perform.
A solution which obviates or mitigates at least one of the above-noted shortcomings would be desirable.